Dr. Mads Gilbert from Tromsø, Norway (Twin City with Gaza City), was working at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza during the last Israeli onslaugt on Gaza. When he returned from Gaza to his home-town Tromsø on July 31 2014, he went straight from the airport to give this spontaneous speech at a large solidar... moreDr. Mads Gilbert from Tromsø, Norway (Twin City with Gaza City), was working at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza during the last Israeli onslaugt on Gaza. When he returned from Gaza to his home-town Tromsø on July 31 2014, he went straight from the airport to give this spontaneous speech at a large solidarity demonstration for Gaza held at the same time.

"....This is not a battle between terrorism and democracy. Hamas is not the enemy Israel is fighting.

"Israel is waging a war against the Palestinian people's will to resist. The unbending determination not to submit to the occupation!

"It is the Palestinian people's dignity and humanity that will not accept - that they are treated as third - fourth - fifth-ranking people...."

Published on Aug 7, 2014

Dr. Mads Gilbert from Tromsø, Norway (Twin City with Gaza City), was working at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza during the last Israeli onslaugt on Gaza. When he returned from Gaza to his home-town Tromsø on July 31 2014, he went straight from the airport to give this spontaneous speech at a large solidarity demonstration for Gaza held at the same time. The regional newspaper "Nordlys" ("Northern Light") streamed the demonstration and featured Dr. Mads' speech on their web-site. They have donated the video. It was transcribed and subtitled in English through a solidarity effort by Norwegian film and video professionals. The video can be shared and used for non-commercial purposes.

Dr. Mads Gilbert: Solidarity with Gaza! If no siege, no tunnels! - If no occupation, no rockets!

Transcription of translated subtitles (from original video in Norwegian)

[APPLAUSE]

I know you applaud for Gaza. I know you applaud for those who are there, the heroes of Gaza.

Dear all, dear all, This will be no easy appeal to make. Because now I am overcome by the mildness, the warmth, the safety – the absence of bombs, jets, blood and death.

And then all we’ve had to keep inside comes to the surface – so forgive me if I sometimes break.

I thought when I got home and met my daughter Siri and Torbjørn – my son-inlaw and my grandkids Jenny and Tørje – that it is such a mild country that we live in. It is so good, with a kind of humanity in all relationships – because we actually built this country on respect for diversity – respect for the individual, respect for human dignity.

And, imagine being back in 1945. And I beg to be understood when I say – that I am NOT comparing the German Nazi regime with Israel. I do not. But I compare occupation with occupation. Imagine that we in 1945 did NOT win the liberation struggle – did NOT throw out the occupier – count NOT see a bright future or believe our kids had a future.

Imagine the occupier remaining in our country – taking it piece by piece – for decades upon decades. And banished us to the leanest areas. Took the fish in the sea, took the land, took the water – and we became more and more confined.

And here in Tromsø, we were actually imprisoned – because here there was so much resistance to the occupation. So we were imprisoned for seven years! Because in an election we had chosen the most resilient – those who would not accept the occupation. Then after seven years of confinement here in Tromsø, our city – the occupier began to bomb us. And they began to bomb us the day we made a political alliance – with those in other confined enclaves around occupied Norway – to say that we Norwegians would stand togethewr against the occupier.

Then they began to bomb us. They bombed our university hospital, then the medical center – then killed our ambulance workers, they bombed schools – where those who had lost their homes were trying to seek shelter. Then they cut the power and bombed our power plant. Then shut off the water supply.

What would we have done? Would we have t given up, waved the white flag? No. No, we would not.

And this is the situation in Gaza.

This is not a battle between terrorism and democracy. Hamas is not the enemy Israel is fighting.

Israel is waging war against the Palestinian people’s will to resist. The unbending determination not to submit to the occupation!

[APPLAUSE]

It is the Palestinian people’s dignity and humanity that will not accept – that they are treated as their-, fourth-, fifth-ranking people.

In 1938, the Nazis called the Jews “Untermensch”, subhuman. Today Palestinians in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the Diaspora, are treated as Untermensch – as subhumans who can be bombed, killed, slaughtered by the thousands – without any of those in power reacting.

So, I returned home to my free country – and this country is free because we had a resistance movement – because we said that occupied nations have the right to resist – even with weapons.

It’s stated in international law! You are permitted to fight the occupier, even with weapons. One should, of course, respect international law.

[HELICOPTER NOISE OVERHEAD]

(The local ambulance helicopter suddenly passes over the demonstration…)

There comes the very finest of everything – our ambulance helicopter with my workmates – a symbol of solidarity.

And they greet us with a nice movement.

You might have seen them earlier, my workmates at my hospital (UNN) – who said the weeks this war started, when I was on call in our ambulance helicopter – “Mads, you’re not here, we’ll cover your call, just leave – You run around like a headless chicken – just leave for Gaza, we will take your place.”

So, many thanks to my coworkers. Thanks to my CEO Tor Ingebrigtsen, who granted my leave – thanks to the University Hospital of North Norway – a true solidarity hospital.

[APPLAUSE]

But whee would we have been today if we, in Norway – had given in to our occupiers?

I thought when I got off the plane – I thought when I cam to Oslo – I thought when I saw you. Nobody wants to be oppressed! Nobody wants to be occupied!

Therefore, it is actually rooted in international law – that an occupied nation can resist – also with armed struggle.

Hamas is not the problem. Hamas is a pretext, a symbol – and if you read Gideon Levy’s recent commentary in Haaretz – Gideon Levy, the outstanding jewish journalist in Haaretz, he says: “Read Hamas’s 10 demands for a ceasefire. Is there any one of those demands – that is not rational, which we would not support?”

No, actually there is not. The demands are that the siege of Gaza be lifted – that Israel should stop its liquidations – that they want a UN monitored border, in the south to Egypt – and in the north to Israel – that their ports are opened – an extended fishing border so they can fish and feed their people – that they be allowed to cultivate land all the way to their borders - Quite basic requirements.

And so, progressive – free-thinking and justice-minded Jews in the USA and Israel say: “These are lawful claims, why can we not talk to them?”

The State of Israel, Netanyahu and Zionist colonists do the opposite. They bomb their enemies to push them even further away – and find even more excuses for occupation and colonization.

What has happened?

Dr. Muhammad Abou Arab and I spent 15 days at Al-Shifa hospital.

I was in Gaza 3 weeks just before this last war on an assignment. I met Dr. Erick (Fosse) at the border on Monday.

He’s still in Jerusalem, waiting to get into Gaza. They will not let him in.

It has been hell – and a magnificent experience. It was a hell of death and horror and bombing of such a brutality – as I have never experienced before. A kind of blind, evil rage that increased forever, day and night. And it continues as we are speaking (August 7th).

The pretext is to remove the “tunnels and terrorists”. As I said on camera to Channel 4 when tending to a boy of 10 years – severely injured, both legs nearly blown off, burned face, intubated:

I said “This is a tunnel.”

“No, it’s a terrorist.”

“No, this is not a terrorist.”

“This is a Palestinian child, whom the state of Israel – and Israeli government forces has tried to kill. His only crime is to be born a Palestinian in Gaza – to be born a proud Palestinian in Gaza – in one of the thousands of families who won’t surrender and be subdued.“

I just received the report from the Ministry of Health. So far: 7,677 injured in 23 days of which 2,307 are children. Killed: 1,357, of which 315 are children. Every fourth killed is a child; every 3rd person injured is a child.

Ask yourself one question and one question only: What would the World have said, what would Obama have said – what would the EU have said – if Palestinian militants had killed 315, God forbid – 315 Israeli children in the course of three weeks?

And what would the world have said if Palestinian militants – came from their tunnels to injure 2,307 Israeli children in 3 weeks?

Everyone knows the answer: It would have been an unbelievable uproar – and probably, as the Palestinians say themselves - “we would have tasted Israeli nuclear weapons.”

So, this is their dilemma, their ceaseless question to us: Why does the world allow our people, our civilians, our pregnant women – our elderly, our children, to be slaughtered every single day?

Every hour, each day and night there are jet bombers, rockets, bombs. In total 8,000 Palestinians have been injured or killed in these 23 days – and according to Israeli figures, the Israeli army’s numbers – 70% of those killed are not-combatants, non-military.

UN says 80-90%, at Shifa we claim – except for two that we saw – that in principle 100% are civilians.

Is it tunnels they hunt? Is it terrorists? No, it is the Palestinian people, it is the Palestinian family – it is the Palestinian “sumud”, steadfastness and perseverance.

“We will not submit to the occupier!,” they say.

At a break in Shifa OR, four in the morning, gray from exhaustion – and we discuss. Sunddenly one of my colleagues gets a call that his home is bombed – and his wife and three children and grandmother barely escaped.

Does he leave his duty? No, he stays. He says: “I have given my house to Al-Quds – I have given it to Jerusalem, I have given it to Palestine. Because this is a struggle that concerns us all. We do not want to kill, they say, but we will not surrender – and submit to the occupation and become a slave people. We will not be a slave people.”

Do they destroy the tunnels? No, they kill the people. Are they capturing terrorists? No, they kill children and elderly women as well as men.

Until now, two Israeli civilians and 1,357 Palestinians have been killed. That’s a ratio of 1 to almost 700. A mathematical expression of how Palestinians experience their worth. One seven-hundredth of an Israeli life.

And what is that? It’s the old system, it is APARTHEID. Separation. The wall in the West Bank is apartheid. “Let us divide apart the two peoples. We shall have the power, this people will be ruled by us.”

This is a racial segregation system implemented with such brutality – that it is difficult to understand how it can continue.

Yesterday at dawn Israeli bombers bombed the Jabalya UNRWA school. UN warned IDF commanders 17 times of the UN-shelter’s GPS position. Thousands of internal refugees tried to sleep, their homes were bombed. In the morning they bomb the school, killing 15, wounding over 100. The wounded came to Shifa, already overcrowded and out of all supplies.

And do they get away with this? Yes.

How about Obama? Obama says, “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

United States and Israel have taken the words hostage. “Attack” is turned into “defense”, “defense” has become “attack”. “Liberator” has become “terrorist”, “terrorist” has become “liberator”.

We have to reclaim the words now – calibrate our language, use appropriate words.

This is a liberation struggle, it is completely legitimate. It is a defensive struggle, it is completely legitimate. And it is a civilian population doing its best to protect itself – from one of the world’s most brutal occupation forces.

As if that was not enough: yesterday they bombed the market in Shejaiya. That’s were the massacre was, it’s flattened, looks like Hiroshima. Another 17 killed yesterday afternoon, 130 injured.

And the brats in “Israel for War” … Isn’t that what its’ called, IFW? “Israel For War”?

They doubted there were bombings of vegetable markets in 2009. Yes, I can assure you there was, and they still bomb vegetable markets. And they bomb more; they bomb hospitals, they bomb schools.

But now they pursue a systematic bombing of families, of houses. So far 68 families have experienced that three or more family members were killed in the same attack.

This is extermination of whole families. Grandparents, uncles and aunts, mothers, fathers, children. They take them out, family by family – just to break the backbone of resistanc in the rest of the people: “If you resist we kill not only you, but we will kill your entire family!”

And they have now re-occupied 44% of the already very small area. Israeli forces are now so deep in that 44% is declared (a) security zone.

Gaza was 360 km2 with 1.8 million people. Now they must survive on half of that area.

The bombing has destroyed 4,000 residential building, and partially destroyed another 4,500 homes, according to the UN, displacing 245,000 internal refugee Palestinians in Gaza.

This is a man-made disaster. No earthquake, no tsunami, this is designed, planned – executed with the utmost cynicism and brutality – by Israel’s army, a governmental army. This is NOT Boko Haram or ISIS, showing contempt for all human values. They kidnap school children, slay everyone they disagree with. But more and more, it resembles the same tactic: “Those who do not agree with us, who do not submit, we will KILL!”! And we couldn’t care less about international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention!

245,000 Gazans currently seek shelter from relentless bombing, trying to comfort their children, trying to find a way to survive, even when sleeping in a UN-run, Un-marked, UN-protected refuge. A school painted light blue (UN color) – 17 times it is stated this is a school, this is a shelter.

And then Obama responds: “We have to have a ceasefire.” Then he supplies Israel with more weapons to continue the bombing.

Sickening double standards, nauseating and hypocritical.

I met a respectable lady who supports Israel in Oslo today. Her name is Anne Sender. During the radio debate she told me: “You must be aware that Israel’s army is so mighty and strong that they could exterminate them altogether!”

And I said: “Excuse me. What did you just say? You actually consider that an alternative?”

“No, but they could have done it!”

Thereby implied they not only killed 1,300 and wounded 7,600, but they could have acted much worse…

And then I think: “What kind of crazy world are we in now?”

So, my friends, we are really here to reclaim human dignity. We are not here to discuss politics. We are here to say we want justice for the Palestinian people. We demand the same dignity for a Palestinian child – a grandmother, an uncle, a driver, a doctor – and, yes, also a political activist – as for any other people. Dignity as human beings.

I read the editorial in today’s VG (large Norwegian newspaper). Then I changed it a bit for the Editorial to read: “Headline: Sanctions against Israel.” The text: “EU and USA adopt new sanctions against Israel. Norway and Foreign Minister Børge Breende warns that they will follow. This is natural. Norway should stand with its allies on this issue. Israel deserves clear and serious reactions – for their violation of neighboring Palestine. Penalties and other sanctions should last and possibly escalate – until Tel Aviv abandons its aggressive and destructive policy. Norway and the West will have to demonstrate that there are limits. For months, Netanyahu and Israel tried hard to destabilize Palestine.“

Replace now, of course Palestine with Ukraine, Netanyahu with Putin, and Israel with Russia and you have the actual Editorial. But where are the sanctions against Israel? How many have been killed in Ukraine – compared to the massacres in Gaza? What is this impunity for Israel? Why is Israel not obliged to follow international law? What kind of double standard is this? How can we allow that the law for the protection of civilians – the law on the protection of hospitals – the law on proportionality in the use of weapons – and distinguishing civilian and military targets are all broken?

How can we allow all these laws to be violated by Israel – thus killing the Palestinian people? We will, of course, not accept this!

So, in conclusion my friends, what can we do?

Well, we have to see the big picture! We must understand that this is a 60-70 year long struggle – against one of the most brutal occupation forces of modern history. This is modern history’s longest-lasting occupation – with the highest number of UN resolutions against it – breaking most human rights, stealing most of the nature and resources of the people they have occupied – violating the basic rule that an occupier is forbidden to settle its own population in the occupied territory. Remember the colonies.

We need to see the big picture, this affects us as much as it concerns the Palestinians. For if Israel can get away with this, if Israel can continue this way, who is next? Who’s next? Who’s next? If the laws of war, if human rights and international humanitarian law may be set aside?

And I say to you, Foreign Minister Børge Brende: Have you forgotten EVERYTHING you learned when you were leader of the Red Cross? Have you forgotten all the rules you enforced – when you were head of the Red Cross? [APPLAUSE] - when you became Foreign Minister? Where are you now, Børge Brende? It’s time you wake up! [APPLAUSE]

Solidarity is a powerful weapon. What can you do? Oh yes, you can do what you did today, you can care, discuss, argue, read the newspapers – in short: be a human who is present in the world. Do not sleep, do not roll over, don’t keep zapping – but allow yourself to be touched and moved. Let your innermost heart be touched! The Heart of the Earth beats in Gaza now. It bleeds, but it beats. And it beats for us all.

The Palestinian people’s resistance in Gaza today is admirable – it is fair, and it is a struggle for all of us.

We do not want a world where raw power can be abused – to kill those who struggle for justice. We do not want such a world!

This demonstration is all about our solidarity – that we realize the Palestinian struggle is a struggle for all of us. For decency, human rights, freedom, independence, against occupation.

Get organized, join the Norwegian People’s Aid – the Palestine Committee, a party – whatever – but get organized.

When I look at you, I am reminded that solidarity is one of the strongest powers in the world. There has never been as many international demonstrations for Gaza and Palestine as during the last 14 days.

I gave 7-9 interviews in South African media, who are very active. They understand that this is about a struggle they once fought and won. International solidarity, local solidarity is an awesome weapon.

So, where are you, Tromsø-Mayor Jens Johan? Where are you Mr. Stein, up there in our Town Hall? Are we not twin cities, Tromsø and Gaza City? Did you fall asleep? [APPLAUSE]

All of you here take responsibility – people to people, across all political borders. We do not want such a world – a world where weapons decide what is right and wrong! We want that right and wrong to be something we can define together – by how we want to treat each other – relate to each other and how the rules must be for human relations.

You can support Ingrid Evertsen’s wonderful initiative from 2006 – the fundraising for The Gaza Municipality Artificial Limb Shop – (ALPC), The Prosthetic Workshop. I was there 3 weeks in June on a research project. They are bankrupt, since public economy in Gaza is broke. Tromsø has saved the workshop before, so they could continue to make fantastic state-of-the-art prostheses from 2006 – but now again they have to close because of lack of funds. Should we allow that to happen? [audience] “NO!”

Shall we raise money for the Prosthetic Workshop? [audience] “YES!”

There you are, Sissel, who gave money the last time! [Pointing to an audience member.]

Today Gunnar Wilhelmsen urged the local businesses in Tromsø to stand up and donate money to the Prosthetic Workshop.

Applause for the business community in Tromsø! Brilliant! [APPLAUSE]

This is perhaps the best project we can support today! It is not political. Unfortunately a large number have been amputated (during) the last 14 days – and we need the Prosthetic Worksshop more than ever.

Get involved in BDS – the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement! It’s really taking off in the USA.

Israel is more isolated than ever politically, and they deserve to be. Israel will become even more isolated politically. Through legal, peaceful political means – Israel will be compelled to abandon the occupation of Palestine. They should be forced to give the Palestinian people a fair future. Like we all want! Thank you all for the effort! [APPLAUSE] Long live Palestine – long live the friendship between Tromsø and Gaza! [APPLAUSE]

Video by Vidar Dons Lindrupsen.

No siege, no tunnels!

No occupation, no rockets!

Dr. Mads Gilbert, July 2014

You can help by making a donation to the “Krafttak for Gaza – Solidarity with Gaza.” All funds will support the Artificial Limbs and Polio Center (ALPC) in Gaza, making new prosthesis for the amputees in Gaza.

From outside Norway, use IBAN NO 38 4776 1598 593 BIC/SWIFT SNOW 22

Transcription from English subtitles by Michael Eisenscher, U.S. Labor Against the War.

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